Icarus
by astrarisks
Summary: Percy Jackson is a labeled Pretty Thing, one of the most sought-after supermodels in the world, but at this moment, when the dark curtains leading to the runway swish and then fall silent, all Annabeth can think is that Percy Jackson is the ugliest human being she has ever seen. :: percy/annabeth. model!au.
1. Ugly

_(uploaded — 8.31.14)_ :: _[back to this fandom for the first time in (forever~) *coughcoughoverfouryearsyouass* _o.O _hey, i had a sudden urge for some percabeth. and if you continue to read onward and you don't like percabeth __— _well, i can't help that you're a moron. _(?! is percabeth-hating even a thing, else what the actual fuck have i missed?!) _inspired by "Pretty Things" by SaturnXK waaay over in the jelsa fandom. huzzah.]

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_I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_. __You can also find this on AO3 (link on my profile)._

* * *

**Icarus**

.

.

_i wonder why_  
_i don't know what you see_  
_of course i care_  
_i won't pretend_

* * *

**chapter one** :: ugly

-—

The first thing Annabeth notices about Perseus Jackson is that he is a walking human stick figure._  
_

The lanky model is all flat planes and sharp angles, sheer cheekbones and broken-glass eyes. Every time Annabeth even looks at him, a little bit more of her heart sinks into a virtual black hole that has opened up inside her chest. Because she sees hollow cheeks that are so terribly _sunken,_ it's as if someone has taken a soup spoon to his flesh before carving out a chunk, leaving behind a gaping chasm of skin and bone where flesh should have been. The bones of his shoulder blades jut out underneath pale skin like great slags of stone bursting from beneath the earth; his fingers are essentially skin stretched across a brittle skeletal frame. Annabeth feels she could probably snap those fingers in half if she so much pressed down on them.

She remembers the first time he slid into the chair, it had been in Beijing, and the theme of that night's walk was nature.

They are running on a tight schedule, make-up artists and models all, and backstage is teetering on the precipice of a razor-sharp edge. Annabeth isn't even a full make-up artist yet, but rather a PA to a one Thalia Grace, which means she's stuck buffing up more low-key names — not that she's complaining. The job is stressful enough as it is.

Annabeth quickly dashes a layer of foundation over Will Solace's face, brush nearly slipping from fingers slippery with dry powder while she tries to ignore the commotion coming from behind her where Drew Tanaka is slapping her manager across the face because _"you're fucking supposed to use the pink eye shadow! PINK, you dumbass!",_ and an especially disheveled Nico di Angelo is stuck screaming at Katie Gardner (who's screaming back) while trying to apply a light rouge to Katie's cheeks.

"Y'know, sometimes, I fucking _hate_ this job," Thalia snarls under her breath at one point from where she is working feverishly on Luke Castellan at her station to Annabeth's immediate right. "Fucking hell." She shoots a piercing glare to Annabeth, who's catching a much-needed breather, "Keep in mind, the promotion's usually way more trouble than it's worth, kid," she sagely says before snapping her attention back to Luke.

Annabeth finishes as quickly as she humanly can with Will after her boss's outburst, trailing earthy skin tones and splashing some clear gloss over his lips and all but shoves him out of the seat as soon as she deems him ready.

_Make these ones pretty,_ Thalia had instructed her before the whole madness had started. That was her one order before the black-haired girl was swept up in the riptide of incoming models.

Waiting to be beautified. By Thalia, by Annabeth, by all the overworked make-up artists present in the room. This is her job, this is what she has signed up for: to daub foundation and blush onto the freakishly thin people she works for and sees on a daily basis. Skate over their flaws and leave behind a façade, a plastic doll.

_Then repeat._

So when Percy Jackson, who is _definitely_ not a low-key model, appears and settles down onto the chair at her station with a thump, unceremoniously snapping his fingers in the air and demanding that Annabeth attend to his sunken cheeks, dark bags, sallow skin, she only shakes her head apprehensively before diving in to work.

As far as Annabeth can tell, Percy, like nearly everyone else she's seen in his profession, lives by walking on the runway and throwing whatever food he eats up in the toilet. His breath smells like blood and vomit and _does-it-look-like-I-give-a-fuck_ when Annabeth leans over to brush makeup over his prominent, chiseled features, and she has to resist the urge to gag at the stench.

When she is done, Percy critically scrutinizes himself in the mirror.

"Do I look feminine enough?" he asks Annabeth quite civilly, quite bored.

She nods dutifully. Beside her, Thalia and Luke have engaged in some sort of loud shouting match over the color of bronzer she used, which only contributes to the overall din still caterwauling throughout the whole area.

"...There's one thing," Percy mutters to himself, still staring at the mirror. Annabeth tears her eyes away from her fuming boss and is starting to have second thoughts about whether or not Percy Jackson is an incurable narcissist when he pulls out a pristine white case and pops in a pair of brown contact lenses.

_"Fucking hypocrites, all of them..."_ he hisses under his breath. He stands up, nodding once at the mirror, and sweeps out of her space toward his hairdressers without a backward glance.

Annabeth watches him leave.

And Perseus Jackson, _Percy Jackson,_ he is a labeled Pretty Thing, one of the most sought-after supermodels in the world, but at this moment, when the dark curtains leading to the runway swish and then fall silent, all Annabeth can think is that Percy Jackson is the ugliest human being she has ever seen.

* * *

___sooo basically a collection of not-quite-lengthy_ things___ detailing a (somewhat dysfunctional?) relationship between percy and annabeth in an overly dramatized model!au setting. will be updated sporadically, b/c this is more of a writing exercise than anything, haha._

___all the best._


	2. Flowers

_(uploaded — 9.18.14)_ :: _[an update here, b/c apparently i'm one hell of a cockamamie idiot whose final chapter of another story i'm grappling with literally consists of a big bucket of "what the fuck"...so i updated this instead..._^^"_]_

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_I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_. You can also find this on AO3._

* * *

**Icarus**

.

.

_time is a valuable thing_  
_watch it fly by as the pendulum swings_  
_watch it count down to the end of the day_  
_the clock ticks life away_

* * *

**chapter two** :: flowers

-—

It's another six months before they happen to have a second chance encounter with each other.

They're both in Paris, doing a walk for Louis Vuitton, and Annabeth is her own person now. Thalia had, not unkindly, told her that she has more than the sufficient skills needed to head out into the field as a professional make-up artist, then told the blonde not to get her head bitten off, and then promptly kicked her out from her personal-assistant-ship-whatever-you-call-it into the full and ghastly world of modelling, alone and reeling and terrified. She now has a new bronze tag (that has already been chipped by a well-aimed blow from Drew Tanaka's inch-long nails) with her name — Annabeth Chase, ANNABETH CHASE — printed across the metal in nice, bold and black and big sans serif font; underneath it, in slightly smaller caps, are words that proclaim her as MAKE-UP ARTIST.

The name tag swings haphazardly from where it has been pinned loosely onto her breast pocket, reflecting the harried mood of its bearer precisely even as she finishes glossing over a model's lips, whose name she cannot quite recall at the moment. After a while, all of them begin to blend into one great heaving sea of nameless, angular faces, skeletal arms and fingers and dark eyes alight with the cold frost of contempt, because none of them quite have the strength to slip fire into their stony stares.

Annabeth has just finished curling the ends of Katie Gardner's brown hair when his voice cuts through the staccato bursts of conversation and screaming that wisp through the air, deep and flat and emotionless.

"You know, I don't have all day."

Katie's snarl appears even before Annabeth can decide whether or not she wants to turn to stare at Percy Jackson in the face, although this is not saying much because Annabeth would have been content to wait for eternity before she makes her decision. The model currently sitting in Annabeth's prep station whirls around, no doubt armed with an entire nuclear arsenal of caustic insults and hoarse screams, and bathes Annabeth with breath that stinks of stomach juices and the iron tang of blood.

_(What the hell,_ Annabeth thinks irritably, leaning slightly away, _eat a breath mint or something.)_

But then Katie catches sight of exactly who she is about to snap at, and instead turns away without a word, pressing her white, thin lips tightly together. She sinks down into the plush chair as if trying to melt into the ground and disappear. Annabeth resists the strong urge to roll her eyes and winds dark brown hair around the curler one last time before shooing the girl away, a stiff angle set to her back.

Percy Jackson slips into the chair in front of her without another word, the sheer fabric of his dark gray clothes rustling silently as he settles down in his seat. He then folds his hands across his lap and waits, eying Annabeth in the mirror.

For some reason unbeknownst to neither man nor gods, Annabeth proceeds to flush as red as an overripe strawberry as soon as she catches Percy Jackson's green eyes staring at her, unblinking and flat.

"What?" she asks with a hint of apprehension, even as she begins to daub foundation onto Percy's cheeks. Cheeks that barely have any visible flesh clinging onto them, cheeks with pasty skin stretched taut over naked bone, cheeks that Death himself must have possessed.

His eyes snap up to the ceiling, an irritated sigh huffing past his lips. _"'Respect your seniors,'_ they said," he snarks, skeletal fingers interlocking ever the more tightly together across his lap. _"'Your seniors may be idiots too dense to form a complete sentence,'_ they neglected to say."

Annabeth really doesn't really know what to say in response to this. So she daubs some more foundation onto the bridge of Percy's nose and hopes he won't go ballistic onto her and begin screaming about how this part of his skin looked a quarter of a shade darker than that one and did Annabeth even _know_ what she was doing and why the hell did she become a make-up artist in the first place?

(She doesn't know the answer to the last question herself.)

Percy continues to grumble, oblivious to the fact that Annabeth is desperately trying to tune him out and not streak concealer too heavily in places where it's not needed. "This is fucking _ridiculous._ Fucking managers are probably half-assed dimwits who can't tell the difference between black and white. It's the fucking middle of December and the theme is goddamned _flowers."_

"If you don't want a streak of white slashed in a most unsightly manner across your face when you go out to walk," mutters Annabeth, and she drops her brush onto her stand before grabbing a bottle of white eye shadow, "please stay still."

Percy snorts. "Have you ever _seen_ Luke Castellan and his fucking scar?"

Annabeth presses her lips tightly together and bluntly says, "Please close your eyes."

Percy complies, and when she's finished, she reaches for the blush.

"You're good at this," he observes, and Annabeth almost drops her pouf.

"What?" she splutters.

"How long have you been here?" asks Percy, completely unconcerned by her flustered manner.

"I...one month. As a full employee. Um, I was Thalia's PA. She taught me a little when I started so I could help out."

He hums. "Thalia's got an eye for talent, then."

Percy Jackson, as Annabeth just finds out, is currently the only person in existence who has managed to make her speechless on two separate occasions.

"...Thank you, Mr. Jackson," she eventually says, right when she's applying the last daubs of make-up onto his face.

His hands swing by his sides when he rises to his feet, giving Annabeth a curt nod of thanks before striding away to the hairdressers.

When Annabeth inadvertently takes a look at his fingers, they are as brittle and thin as Popsicle sticks.

* * *

_don't worry, the percy we all know and love will come through soon enough. ...okay, maybe not so soon. _#_# _i have no idea how long this will be, but i know what will happen if that helps any?! _o.O

_all the best._


	3. Apple

_(uploaded — 10.23.14)_ :: _[yo wtf is up w/ that norse mythology series name, "magnus chase," really rick? really? _-_-_ that's my unimpressed face. anyway if u haven't noticed already i don't edit shit in this story...*AHEM* hai there again~ randomly coming back to this bc my main story is giving me a fuckin' headache _(~~")_ also dont follow percy's attitude, bc...no. just no. _-_-_ food is good. im 10000% sure all of you look lovely the way you are _:)_]_

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_I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_. You can also find this on AO3._

* * *

**Icarus**

.

.

_somebody better let me know my name_  
_before i give myself away_  
_somebody better show me how i feel_  
_'cause i know i'm not at the wheel_

* * *

**chapter three** :: apple

-—

He doesn't eat.

The very word _eat_ leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

_Eat_ means a full stomach, _full stomach_ means he'll be full, _full_ means he won't be _empty,_ and he needs to be empty. Blank, clean, untainted, so that he can become someone he's not, so that the bronzer and concealer and mascara brushed over his features are the only things that the world sees and not the bag of skeleton bones underneath.

Percy Jackson gives his best death glare at the slice of poundcake that has been shoved under his nose by — _what's her name again?_

He decides after a moment of careful deliberation that he doesn't really give two fucks about cheating and sneaks a look at her tag.

_Annabeth Chase, Make-up Artist._

"What are you _doing?"_ he snaps, all but flinging the plate away from him. It lands with an inaudible sound against the mirror in front of him, trailing a wet smear of white frosting and bleeding blueberries down the reflective surface.

(He hates frosting.)

Chase quirks an unimpressed eyebrow at the pile of moist sugar and flour slopped messily across the mirror's formerly pristine surface, now resembling a vague pile of mush rather than the neat triangle it had been five seconds prior.

"You haven't eaten," she bluntly says, before shoving a single hand underneath his chin and tilting his head up to apply thin lines of black liner on his eyelids.

Muttering through clenched teeth: _"And I don't want to, thank you very fucking much."_

She laughs, and the sound is bitter and mocking.

"Do you even hear yourself? You've eaten one apple since this morning, Jackson."

He doesn't even ask how she knows this; instead he roughly tears her hand away from underneath his chin, almost ruining his makeup in the process. Chase lets out a sound of irritation.

"And that apple is actually _quite_ enough." The cold bite of winter snaps at the heels of his words, frosty and unsympathetic.

"And does your throat hurt because of the acid burns, _your majesty?"_ she snarks back. Leaning closer, "I _know_ what you're doing when you disappear into the washroom every two ours."

Percy waves her off. "If you are done with prodding into my personal life, I'll take my leave of you now."

And he strides away from his seat without another word on limbs made of plastic.

Maybe it's just his imagination, but the lights outside on the runway are flashing a darker shade of gray, and he thinks he can feel Chase's gray eyes burning into his back. Ripping past layers of the little flesh that clings onto his bones, bones made of sand and soul patched together with childish stitches, woven in fallacies.

_Because the people I spend time around these days aren't _people,_ they're Barbies and Bratz and Polly Pockets and their limbs hurt just as much as their plastic counterparts'._

He immediately sweeps into the restroom and locks the door after the show, and pretends he doesn't see Annabeth Chase's accusing eyes glaring holes into his back.

* * *

_all the best._


	4. Sweep

_(uploaded — 11.23.14)_ :: _[you can count on at least one update a month, that's all i can promise. chapters rly aren't getting any longer out from here...__]_

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_I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_. You can also find this on AO3._

* * *

**Icarus**

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.

_see, i know what we got to do_  
_you let go and i'll let go too_  
_'cause no one's hurt me more than you_  
_and no one ever will_

* * *

**chapter four** :: sweep

-—

Annabeth has watched Percy Jackson walk down the runway all of one time before deciding she'll never do it again.

She hovers backstage, pale fingers crunching black velvet, silently watching each model come to and fro, to and fro. Percy walks the second to last walk and breezes past her without a sound, without a glance tot he side: strutting confidently down the runway like he had been born to do so, eyes set firmly ahead, cold and unyielding, thin shoulders relaxed yet tensed with a lion's grace. Slender man bordering upon skinny bordering upon anorexic whose bones and skin are dipped in a sheer fabric façade and then draped with drizzles of molten brown and white chocolate threads, hair gelled to the side in dreadful waves of stormy black.

And he looks handsome, _beautiful,_ perhaps, to the screaming horde of photographers with cameras that flash at an average rate of too many times per second, reporters with their screeching voices and aggressive use of microphones, the magazine editors working the Photoshop like there's no tomorrow, the rich patrons and labels and the entire _world_ in general._  
_

He looks handsome and beautiful because many, Annabeth among them, have molded him into something to look upon with admiration. He looks beautiful because of linen and fleece and wool, the shine of his hair, the faint shimmer around his (dead) eyes and under his (sunken) cheekbones and the pale cerise slash of his mouth.

Percy Jackson is nothing more than a reflection of others, mirroring back the efforts of a hundred and ten artists who have toiled over him, a blank canvas turned into something appealing on the eyes. Something lifeless and dull and uninteresting as two-dimensional painted pools of water, whimsical frozen pieces coalesced together into something shaking and rickety at its core during the best of times, only held together by lies and fallacies.

Annabeth turns away with a sick feeling in her stomach and can only stare at the concave gap of the hollow space beneath Percy's ribs, where the fabric flutters much more loosely around than it does other areas, when he passes by her once more.

:.

The next time there's a walk, it's in Barcelona and the theme is androgyny. Annabeth stays behind backstage this time and refuses to watch Percy walk to help manage the scraps of silk and feathered cloths and sequined bolts lying about, tossed away at the last minute. Thalia chucks at her a bottle of make-up remover before grabbing her coat and fumbling over her words to explain that something happened at home with her baby brother and she has to leave _right now_ and then promptly abandons Annabeth, leaving her in charge of the returning models.

Annabeth _hates_ the removing part.

She doesn't hate it because the models throw tantrums about if she is using the right brand of remover (_it's just alcohol and moisturizer, for fuck's sake_), or if it is suited for their skin (_sorry, lass, but when you break out, it'll still be my job to cover up_), or if they dislike the smell.

She doesn't mind (_not all that much_) when Drew Tanaka plucked the sodden wad of cottonwool out of her hand and tosses it at her face, or when Will screams bloody murder because the solution stings his face. She wipes off the cottonwool with one sweep of her hand, and the ringing in her ears is only temporary.

No, she hates it because with each sweep of her fingers, she takes off some pigment and cream, and off with them comes some of the artificiality that surround and encroach with greedy fingers the men and women she works on, leaving only the stark white truth behind. The cotton pads clutched in between her fingers gather streaks of creamy brown and red gloss and yellow glitter, and the face and neck and shoulders will lose a cover or two, exposing humanity in a cruel combination of stinging and sticky residue.

_Sweep_, and there is a laugh line. _Sweep_, and there is a tiny black mole. _Sweep_, and there are the scars from an early breakout of acne.

_Sweep, _and there is work undone; careful work that had ensured these people looked anything, _anything_, but human.

These men and women are blank canvases and empty dressmaker's dollies, pretty things for designers to play with, for choreographers to walk down runways; they are the real-life Barbie dolls and Kens, plastic with movable limbs, pretty things with ribbons in their hair and red on their lips, wrapped in satin and fleece.

But with each flaw they become pretty things with heartbeats and hopes and imaginations, and Annabeth Chase does not think she can handle understanding the mysteries of humanity and beauty, especially when her chief source of income is hiding it.

* * *

_all the best._


End file.
